Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: IntelyCare CEO David Coppins (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: You expect people to be trained at a certain level to be part of your pool that you staff with. What is that qualification that you’re looking for?

David Coppins: We employ Registered Nurses (RN), Licensed Vocational Nurses (LVN), and nurse aids. Each one of them has their own objective certifications. Beyond that, we require that everyone have at least one year experience working in long-term care.

The person we want to bring to our clients has made a commitment to long-term care. We look for the best that are out there. We continuously add training on top of that. We have developed a very robust, mobile-based training program that will be soon offered to our client workforce. 

Sramana Mitra: Interesting. Would you take on training new people who are coming from other industries into this profession?

David Coppins: We were just discussing that today. If we do find that there is a desire to move into that, then we’re well-equipped to provide that kind of training. 

Sramana Mitra: I would do that. This industry needs to be retooled. There’s a very clear situation right now where a lot of people will be needing jobs and would need to transition from one industry to another. They need the retraining and the retooling.

It seems to me that you are well-positioned to bear some of that responsibility. Switching gears, what do you see as open problems in this segment where you would encourage new entrepreneurs to come in and start a new company?

David Coppins: Through this COVID crisis, telemedicine has got such a huge boost that a number of insurance companies have decided to reimburse for telemedicine. Medicare and Medicaid said that they will now pay for telemedicine which was stuck for years. It’s a tremendous trend. It’s very important also for the senior care industry.

There’s a lot of great telemedicine companies that are out there. I think that recommendation would be to look at that directly or support systems for telemedicine companies.

Another opportunity is in aging at home. There’s a desire for people to age at home rather than in facilities. The thing that seems to be lacking there is there’s still somebody walking the halls and checking on them which is what you get in a facility. Without that, the sensor industry is what’s going to make it possible for people to age at home.

I’m a huge proponent of continued investment in sensors. There have been a lot of people who have talked about it and created things, but they’re not solid. This has to be extraordinarily simple and bulletproof. It can’t break down. It can’t disengage.

If you do that, then you really have opened up the world for aging at home much more so. There’re a number of ways to just check on the typical movements of what you would expect. That’s another one.

Sramana Mitra: Also, a hybrid model with technology and people. Part of the compensation of their lack of training could be through technology. They either get trained through technology or get equipment with which to do their job right.

Your industry has lots of opportunities to provide employment to a vast number of people using many technological innovations.

David Coppins: We feel like we’re just scratching the surface. We certainly agree with you.

Sramana Mitra: Excellent. Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: IntelyCare CEO David Coppins
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